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In this morning's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer holds up John Tyner as a new pop hero. Tyner is the man who videotaped his search at an airport and told the inspector "Don't touch my junk." Krauthammer suggests that the complicated and, by design, invasive searches at airports have nothing to do with security and everything to do with political correctness. "Dont's touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I'm a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?" I have only one question for Mr. Tyner - and for Mr. Krauthammer. Would you feel the same way if you were seated on a plane next to Timothy McVeigh?

I have already written to defend the new guidelines governing the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and the CCHD itself, from critics who charge it has compromised the Church’s identity by funding groups that, while not pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage themselves, belong to coalitions that promote an agenda that is at odds with the fundamental teachings of the Church. It is clear to any fair-minded person that the charges are baseless.

During my reporting on the CCHD and its critics, one comment stuck with me. Deal Hudson, one of the leading critics of CCHD and currently the editor of InsideCatholic.com and formerly the editor of Crisis magazine, asked why so many community organizing coalitions are pro-abortion in the first place, why so many of them stand at odds with the Church on the hot button social issues of the day, even if those positions are not part of their principal mission or agenda, and so, not in violation of the CCHD guidelines. It is a fair question, one the new CCHD guidelines addressed, thoroughly from my perspective, insufficiently from Hudson’s.

In the event, Anderson Cooper at CNN not only exposed this absurd charge that President Obama's trip to India was going to cost $200 million per day, he also pointed to a much-needed growth industry: sound journalism. This is one instance where I like market values. If the cost of spreading lies rises because of work like Cooper's, the incidence of lies will diminish.

Of course, political deceit has long been a bi-partisan growth industry too.

Democrats credit Bill Clinton's policies with the economic boom of the 1990s, neglecting the growth of the dot.com sector of the economy. Republicans think cutting taxes raises revenue every time. Both parties indulge fanciful out-year projections to support their claims.

But at least the slap-down of Bachmann et al.'s ridiculous untruths can start a trend. Complex lies may continue to enjoy a long shelf life, but it is progress if we can at least call out the simple lies.

John Judis has a very smart article about the role of Independent voters and the campaign strategies being crafted in the White House. Judis is a very smart analyst of trends in the electorate, although I wish he had examined thr role of religiously inspired values in motivating these swing voters.

I do not expect the Republican Tea Partyers to admit they should be eating some crow anytime soon, but they should be dining on an entire flock of crows this week.

One of the principal complaints against the Obama administration heard at Tea Party events was the charge that the government had wasted taxpayer money with all those bailouts.

Never mind that the largest bailout, of Wall Street, happened on George W. Bush's watch and helped prevent a second Great Depression. When it came time to bailout Detroit, critics complained that the government intervention violated the laws of the free market, that GM now stood for "Government Motors," and cries of socialism were bandied about.

Well, GM is now in the midst of one of the most successful IPO's in history and, as a consequence, the U.S. Treasury is getting almost all of its money back. This does not include the ireeparable harm to the Treasury that would have occured if GM had been allowed to fail, with tens of thousands of layoffs, workers no longer paying taxes, etc.

The bailout of Wall Street worked and, however repugnant it seemed, it was necessary. But the bailout of Detroit was different.

I guess I should not expect more from someone who entitles her column "The Spirited Atheist," but Susan Jacoby's column in the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog is so ridiculous, it undercuts the subheading on her blog, "In search of a new Age of Reason."

Jacoby is all in a lather because of the election of Archbishop Timothy Dolan as president of the USCCB. But the sentence that jumped out at me was this: "Dolan's election was a victory for the most orthodox forces within the church." It is clear from the context, that to Ms. Jacoby, orthodoxy is a bad thing and being the "most orthodox" is a very bad thing.

In what way does this estimation of orthodoxy cohere with the Age of Reason? It is like those skeptics who employ the adjective "dogmatic" as a slur.

Ahmed Ghailani was cleared in federal court yesterday on 284 of the 285 counts against him. Ghailani was implicated in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and was held at Guantanamo Bay. He was the first ex-Gitmo detainee to be tried in a civilian courtroom and the result may mean he was also the last.

President Obama came to office, in part, on the pledge to shutdown the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Calls for its closure were among the best applause lines during the Democratic primaries and gave Democrats a patriotic, if somewhat naïve, claim that they were better suited to defend the Constitution than the Republicans who were trampling on it in the so-called War on Terror. But, the office to which Obama came requires him to defend the country as well as its Constitution and he has not found anyway to make good on his promise.

One of my favorite commentators on religion, Mark Silk, has an interesting post about Damon Linker's thesis that we should -- the Constitution notwithstanding -- have a religious test for office. Not, of course, the kind administered by the government, but the kind administered by the press and public.

Linker is correct that politicians like to trade on their religiosity, but bristle when you press them to explain how their faith informs their public policy positions, resulting in a double standard. "Religious values matter when we say they matter, and because our pollster tells us we should put up some religious window dressing on our campaign persona, but don't expect us to explain how."

Of course, running for President or Congress is not like running for bishop -- the latter requires real political acumen! LOL.

But the debate Linker and Silk suggest is a provocative one and should be engaged.

The good folks at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good have a new "Common Good Forum" today with three articles dealing with different aspects of poverty.

As Father Tom Reese, S.J. mentioned in his analysis of the USCCB meeting, despite the dire economic difficulties in which the nation finds itself, the bishops did not address themselves at all to economic issues. They did, however, broadly endorse the new report on the CCHD, the Church's anti-poverty program.

CACG, however, has raised its voice about the way the economic downturn, as well as broader economic trends, are raising poverty rates to unacceptable levels. As Catholics and Christians, concern for the poor is every bit as integral to our Catholic identity as support for the unborn and our defense of traditional marriage.

I am simultaneously suspicious of, but recognize the neccesity for, blue ribbon, bi-partisan panels to address some of our nation's most complicated issues.

This morning, in an op-ed, Clinton economic guru Alice Rivlin and former GOP Senator Pete Domenici, announce their proposals for reducing the debt abd deficit.

My resistance to blue ribbon commissions setms from their inherently anti-democratic premise. After all, we elect Congress and the President to solve these problems. But, given the current polarization in the country and especially in its political class, I see the need for those like Rivlin and Domenici to reach, and propose, the kind of common ground that could cost a member of Congress a primary election.